Day by Day

Friday, January 18, 2013

And another morning of waking up and wondering who took a baseball bat to my entire body while I slept.

I hate getting old. BUT..... it's the fact that I wasn't doing these workouts that allowed me to get a little flabby in the first place. If I had been working out this hard to begin with I wouldn't be hurting right now. I've allowed myself to get a little complacent with running and doing basic muscle failure; what I'm doing now is pretty much hand to hand fighting while wearing multiple pounds of armor, and I'm feeling the pain as my muscles and joints remember just what the hell they're supposed to do.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Rounding up people and sending them to concentration camps (whether
called "reservations" or "relocation centers"). Check. (Treatment of
Native Americans. Japanese-American "Relocation Centers" during World
War II).

Illegal medical experiments involving infecting people
with diseases, not treating them, and observing the effects done on
people without their knowledge or consent. Check. (Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment--and
particularly interesting how that was "explained" to the victims as
they were getting free health care from the US Government.)

Arbitrary
searches of American citizens' households aimed at the seizure of
property without either probable cause or any kind of warrant. Check. (post-Katrina gun Confiscation)

Laws passed allowing the indefinite detention of American Citizens without due process of law. Check. (NDAA 2012)

American
citizens going about their daily business being stopped and searched
again without probable cause or any kind of warrant (or even the
"reasonably articulable suspicion" for a "Terry Stop"). Check. (TSA, not
just at Airports, but at bus terminals, rail and subway terminals, highways, even High School Proms.)

Yeah, I copied a lot of it, because I want it spread. Go read the rest.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

I'm sending a retirement gift off to someone - cigars. Multiple varieties, all of which represent his life at some stage or another. And I'll be printing this poem out and sending it with them:

The Betrothed

"You must choose between me and your cigar."
--BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, CIRCA 1885.
Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.
We quarrelled about Havanas--we fought o'er a good cheroot,
And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.
Open the old cigar-box--let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie's face.
Maggie is pretty to look at--Maggie's a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.
There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay,
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away--
Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown--
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!
Maggie, my wife at fifty--gray and dour and old--
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!
And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar--
The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket--
With never a new one to light tho' it's charred and black to the socket.
Open the old cigar-box--let me consider awhile--
Here is a mild Manilla--there is a wifely smile.
Which is the better portion--bondage bought with a ring,
Or a harem of dusky beauties fifty tied in a string?
Counsellors cunning and silent--comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride.
Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.
This will the fifty give me, asking naught in return,
With only a Suttee's passion--to do their duty and burn.
This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.
The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
When they hear my harem is empty, will send me my brides again.
I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,
So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.
I will scent 'em with best Vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,
And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.
For Maggie has written a letter that gives me my choice between
The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.
And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelve-month clear,
But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year;
And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light
Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.
And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.
Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?
Open the old cigar-box--let me consider anew--
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.
Light me another Cuba--I hold to my first-sworn vows,
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!